A General Motors Co. logo is shown during a news conference in Detroit, Jan. 25, 2010. General Motors has recently bought self-driving car firm Cruise. Could this be major step forward for automated driving?

On Friday, the automotive giant announced its plan to acquire San Francisco-based startup Cruise Automation. Cruise focuses on developing autonomous driving technology and is the latest addition in GM’s growing autonomous portfolio.

Until now, the race for self-driving cars has largely taken place outside of Detroit. Silicon Valley tech giants have spent years and billion of dollars creating teams specializing in self-driving cars, while most major car manufacturers have lagged behind. GM’s latest investment could signal that the American car giant is ready to compete in the autonomous arena.

“We are excited to be partnering with GM and believe this is a ground-breaking and necessary step toward rapidly commercializing autonomous vehicle technology,” said Kyle Vogt, founder of Cruise Automation.

The three-year-old startup has had success with aftermarket kits designed to work with specific Audi car models, the A4 and S4, a $10,000 add-on with a sensor on top of the car and a computer in the trunk, reports ComputerWorld.

The acquisition terms are still unknown, but rumors and estimations place the deal at $1 billion or more. Without revealing numbers, GM spokesman Kevin Kelly told Fortune the Detroit giant planned on rapidly expanding the Cruise team, starting with 10 new job openings already posted on the startup’s website.

Despite GM's push, Silicon Valley maintains a comfortable lead in the self-driving race, with companies like Tesla Motors, Apple Inc, and Alphabet (parent company of Google) making the biggest advances in self-driving capabilities.

All three have developed extensive in-house divisions dedicated to autonomous cars that are already showing practical applications.

IHS Automotive predicted in January 2014 that self-driving cars with driver controls would be widely available around 2025 and self-driving "only" cars would arrive around 2030. If their predictions are correct, 3.5 million self-driving cars would be driving in North America by 2035.

“There are several benefits from self-driving cars to society, drivers, and pedestrians,” said Egil Juliussen, an analyst for IHS Automotive. “Accident rates will plunge to near zero for SDCs, although other cars will crash into SDCs, but as the market share of SDCs on the highway grows, overall accident rates will decline steadily.”